Akamai Picks Up Ad Targeting Firm Acerno For $95 Million

Akamai Technologies (AKAM) continues to grow deeper into the advertising industry and beyond its traditional business of pushing photos and videos across the Web. The latest: The company is buying NYC-based ad targeting firm Acerno for $95 million in cash.

What's Acerno? An ad targeting system that uses anonymous data from more than 450 brands/retailers and 140 million customers to try to predict who you are and what you're interested in buying -- and therefore, which ads you should see.

Akamai's potential advantage in the ad biz: It already handles some of the Web infrastructure for many top-brand publishers and ad networks, so it has a deep roster of potential clients -- and is already part of the delivery process of getting their site to your Web browser.

AdAge reports that Akamai will charge a share of the targeted ads' revenue, and that IAC (IACI) is an early tester.

The deal, which Akamai expects to close this year, won't ding its normalized earnings this year, the company said in a release.

Akamai shares are down 3% today to $15.35. The company reports Q3 earnings next Thursday, Oct. 30.